The Spectacles

'The Spectacles' is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in March 1844 in the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. It is one of Poe's comedy tales.
The narrator, 22-year-old Napoleon Buonaparte Froissart, changes his last name to 'Simpson' as a requirement to inherit a large sum from a distant cousin, Adolphus Simpson. At the opera he sees a beautiful woman in the audience and falls in love instantly. He describes her beauty at length, despite not being able to see her well; he requires spectacles but, in his vanity, 'resolutely refused to employ them'. His companion Talbot identifies the woman as Madame Eugenie Lalande, a wealthy widow, and promises to introduce the two. He courts her and proposes marriage; she makes him promise that, on their wedding night, he will wear his spectacles.